Ballet should be glitter and magic, says Judith Vanden
Bosch, a German native and master costume designer for a local dance studio.

She lives in Kentwood now, but spent most of her life in
Oppenheim, in Rheinhessen, with a mother who was a dancer. "I wasn't as
talented as she was, but I was always dancing," she said of her growing up
years.

While she loved dancing, the outfits in which she was asked to perform did not suit her. "Sometimes the costumes that they gave us didn't make me feel as pretty
as I wanted," she said.

She knew she couldn't choose what she would wear in a
ballet, but still was frustrated. At some point while she was still a young girl, she started "gluing on crafty things" to make the
outfit prettier.

She took up sewing at the age of 12 and began crafting her own tutus and accessories.

"Finally" at the age
of 16, she was chosen to join a company. "At that point, I heard, 'if you need something
to spice it (her assigned costume) up, go ahead." The company also started asking
her to "help out with accessories such as wings and headpieces," she said.

After marrying a United States soldier, Vanden Bosch came to West Michigan. Soon after arriving about five years ago, she began work with
balletmore, a dance studio located near Breton Avenue and Burton Street. There
she serves as an instructor of dance, ballet mistress, choreographer,
photographer, and costume designer.

"As balletmore's performance of The Nutcracker approaches,
it is the tasteful and reasonably priced costuming that helps set this
production apart from the rest," said balletmore owner director Melanie
Brossiet.

"Vanden Bosch's costume-making talents started as a student
dancer. She received the role of the
Spanish Doll in Coppelia, and wanted to wear a costume like a professional
ballerina, so she started to make her own tutus for performances because she
did not like the ones she was given. Wearing her own handmade dresses
specialized for her body made her happy to dance and she felt amazing
performing onstage."

"Costumes you
purchase are never a perfect fit," said Vanden Bosch.

Costumes get to be expensive when ordering from catalogs, said
Brossiet, and her "creative ability has kept costs reasonable for families at the studio."

Vanden Bosch is in
charge of more than 800 costumes, which she stitches, recycles, and creates from
scratch for dancers of all ages. She is resourceful and has an artistic eye for
making something out of nothing, said Brossiet. She watched her mother sew for
the studio that she ran in Germany and learned to work with gems, ribbons,
glitter, paper, and fabric. She said that she visits clearance racks, online
discount dance offers, garage sales, and craft stores to design costumes for
balletmore.

Her favorite task is creating characters with the costume or
"anything you can put a name on." She particularly enjoys creating headpieces
or corsets which take a long time. "But," she said, "they are very relaxing to
me, gluing little gems over and over in a pattern."

She believes that if a dancer has a beautiful costume they
are proud of, they bring extra magic to
the stage. "The children really inspire me," she said. "When I tell a dancer
that I made a costume especially for them, the look on their face as they spin
and twirl in the mirror is priceless."

"The Nutcracker" by balletmore will be performed at 2 and 4 p.m., Dec. 8, at Northview
High School's Max Colley Jr. Performing Arts Center.